Data Recovery help! HDD showing 128GB when it should be 750GB

[camosilver311]

i had begun to install windows on a 750GB drive the i have never installed an OS on, just a bunch of other files. i got to the point in the windows installation where it asked me if i want to partition the drive or install windows in the current unpartitioned space, and at this point i quit the installation, fearing i would lose my files if i had gone any further. well wouldn't you know it, once i got the comp up with another drive with windows on it, i hooked up this hard drive and in my computer if you click on this drive it says "unformatted drive".

i have Recover My Files, which i began to use last night. that shows my drive as "RAW: 128GB". this drive is 750GB, with about 500GB of that being used. i clicked "complete format recover", and i let the program run all night and it just told me it found 577 files and 30,000 OS files (i never installed windows on it, i quit before i went past the partition part). the program was running 8 hours and the bar was about half way done. i clicked stop and checked the files it found and there's less than 10% of the files i had on that drive that were actually found.

am i doing something wrong or am i just screwed?

and i need another drive to save the files to if i recover them, right? can this 750GB drive be reformatted and used again when i am done?

 

[Hefemeister]

http://www.techist.com/forums/f77/137gb-barrier-75188/

 

[office politics]

i think the 30000 os files are the files loaded prior to the welcome screen. hal, pci.sys etc.

 

[camosilver311]

thanks for the responses. as for the 137gb barrier, the computer reads my 250GB drive just fine, so that shouldn't be the problem.

also, i scanned a drive i have that i know for a fact never had an OS on it, and it still found 20,000 OS files in the first few minutes, before i stopped the search.

any ideas what is going on??

 

[KSoD]

What version of Windows with what SP?

 

[camosilver311]

What version of Windows with what SP?

well i had windows xp ro with sp3, but i just did a repair install and didn't even think about it. just checked and it's not showing i have any sp's installed, so i am going to install them now. but would that have any effect on the problem? this drive that i am trying to recover has no OS on it

 

[KSoD]

Yes it would. Before XP SP2 there was no support for anything above the 137GB barrier. So that could very well be the reason why you are having so much trouble with your efforts.

 

[camosilver311]

but, i am also running a 250gb drive on this same computer and it's displaying that one as 233gb with 79gb free, like it should. on the other hand, i just swapped this drive in to this computer and although all the files are there(this drive is full of videos only), when you click on the files they aren't always as labeled, and aren't playing all the way through. so maybe it's displaying the full 250gb, but only letting me have access to 137gb of it?

well i am in the process of installing sp3 rigth now so we'll see what happens

what a nightmare. nothing is working for me whatsoever. i tried installing sp3 but it won't install without sp1 or higher already installed. i installed sp1 but it gives me an error at the very end saying that it could not finish installing, press ok to cancel installation or cancel to continue and leave windows in a partially updated state. i clicked continue, and immediately tried installing sp3 but it gives me the same error, it doesn't recognize that i "partially updated" my comp to sp1.

what's the deal with all that??